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Book 907: Hot Seat (The Hot Cannolis #1) – Eli Easton and Tara Lain

Give me an opposites-attract, man-in-uniform, light on the sex book any day and I am here for it! I knew the first two when I grabbed a copy of this from Gay Romance Reviews, but I didn’t know the third and that made it that much better!* And that was before I opened it to find a discussion about Wuthering Heights on the first page!!!

I’ve previously read Easton, but not Lain so I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one as I started, but quickly got into the story and the writing and didn’t look back finishing it in basically two sittings, and of course, spent a portion of it tearing up in public because one series of scenes towards the end just hit me hard.

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Book 906: Black Cake – Charmaine Wilkerson

When someone from the publisher reached out to me about Black Cake, it wasn’t an immediate yes or an immediate no.* I honestly had no idea what I was going to do, I thought it was a beautiful cover (even if I didn’t notice the woman on it for ages) and the multi-generational story drew me in.

What ultimately decided for me was that it was a debut novel, love those most of the time, and my reading list is seriously lacking authors of color and I’ve been saying for years I’m going to expand my reading list. And holy shit y’all I’m so glad I did, this book took me for so many rides.

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Book 896: A Christmas Miracle (Winsford Green #4) – Ruby Moone

As I said in my response to Dances Long Forgotten, the first book of Moone’s Winsford Green series, I sought it out because I received this review request from Gay Romance Reviews and it intrigued me enough to want to give the series a go.*

I liked the series enough to request this book halfway through the first. And while I don’t regret it, I think the first book was the strongest (I LOVED the flashback and hoped for it again), this and People Like Us were a distant second, and The Schoolmaster’s Spy further behind them.

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Book 890: Playing at Home (Sporting Secrets #2) – Jax Calder

I have been waiting for this ARC request to arrive in my inbox ever since I read the teaser at the end of Playing Offside and it was worth the wait!*

Playing at Home is the story of Jacob Browne, professional rugby player and son of a legendary New Zealand rugby player who’s recently split with his wife but is co-parenting his kids, and Austin, the manny his wife hires who’s fled London after a mess with his previous employer.

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Book 888: A Dashwood of Sense and Sensibility (Love, Austen #6) – Anyta Sunday

This wasn’t the perfect ending to Sunday’s Love, Austen retellings, but it was a damn good one. Like the last five there was no doubt I would accept the ARC when it came in (and I was a little worried when I didn’t see it even though its publication date was fast approaching)!*

We met Noah and Zach Dashwood in one of the previous novels (I believe Finley Embraces Heart and Home) and I have to assume we met Brandy/Brandon and Wade at some point too, but no clue honestly. For some reason, I guess because the names were great cognates like some of the other books, it took me way too long to remember who Zach and Noah were compared to Elinor and Marianne from the OG Sense and Sensibility. Once I got that sorted, I was all set.

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